Angela Merkel’s refugee dilemma

For months, they waited and waited to reach this reception room inside the refugee centre in Berlin. Now, the gleaming hall with row-upon-row of seating and polished counters in the heart of Germany’s capital awaits them — asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. “We were allotted this place, the abandoned headquarters of a defunct bank, with no water or electricity and, within two months, we had to process hundreds of thousands of men, women and children through it,” says Monika Hebbinghaus, press officer of the Regional office for Refugee Affairs, while walking us through the procedures.

Many coming in through the perilous route from Turkey, Greece and all the way from Hungary in 2015, much of the way on foot, were dehydrated and had open wounds, says Ms. Hebbinghaus. Their numbers swelled with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban closing his borders to them even as Germany braced for about a million at its doorstep. School gymnasiums across the country had to be requisitioned to put them up. Even as Chancellor Angela Merkel was widely criticised for agreeing to admit about 8,00,000 asylum-seekers within a few months, she refused to back down from espousing Germany’s “open-door” policy.

Officials worry that the government could cut funding for the refugee programme as a result of the falling numbers, leaving Germany unprepared to deal with the next crisis

The cost of handling the refugees, including social benefits, came to about €20 billion in 2016, and cost Ms. Merkel several local elections, including the one in Berlin, a city-state that itself took in about 55,000 refugees. “Some protested against her policy loudly, but many other objected more silently by voting against Merkel,” says journalist Martin Jabs. “In Germany, it remains a very touchy subject to be seen as racist or anything that links to our Nazi past, but people were worried about losing jobs as well as a way of life, though neither happened.”

A series of attacks

A series of attacks across Europe, credited to the Islamic State, fuelled those fears, as did five attacks in Germany itself in 2016, including one by a refugee who had arrived the year before. Suddenly, there was an unprecedented acceptance for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party and its firebrand leader Frauke Petry, who likened the refugees to “compost”. The AfD shot up in the polls, and even beat Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in one State election. Though it has fallen from its peak levels, the AfD still commands about 10% of the vote ahead of elections this September.

Polls consistently show that the refugee issue remains the biggest one for the Germans. “Never in the past 40 years have we seen one subject as the most important, far above all other issues,” says Berlin’s Freie University Professor Oskar Neidermayer, who estimates that it remains the most important issue for 44% of the voters. Fortunately for Ms. Merkel, the number of those refugees has drastically reduced as the Balkan route has been effectively sealed off, and her own numbers are up. Polls show her CDU-led coalition in the best position to form the next government.

The Berlin refugee centre has seen only 2,655 applications so far this year, which explains the deserted waiting hall and quiet corridors, where only a year ago there was hardly any breathing space. “The problem hasn’t gone away, as the refugees are still fleeing violence. They are just not able to come to Germany any more,” says Ms. Hebbinghaus. The new worry for officials is that the government could cut funding for the refugee programme as a result of the falling numbers, leaving Germany unprepared to deal with the next possible crisis, that still hovers at Europe’s door.